Beauticians or beauty operators have a problem in administering beauty care to a patient or a client in a wheelchair. It is particularly difficult when it is necessary to shampoo the patient's hair, since this customarily requires tilting the patient's body and head backwards.
One way to administer a shampoo to a wheelchair patient is to lift the patient out of the wheelchair and into a shampoo chair. It is easy then to tilt the patient backwards for a shampoo, since the shampoo chair is made for this purpose. However, this is not a very good solution to the problem since it takes at least two people to lift the patient out of the wheelchair and into the shampoo chair. Even with two persons doing the lifting, there is still a possibility that the wheelchair patient might be dropped or otherwise injured during this process.
Another solution might be to simply tilt the wheelchair backward by hand, with the patient in it. However, this may frighten the person in the wheelchair or at least may make the person apprehensive or nervous. This also requires at least two persons to tilt the wheelchair and involves a possibility of injury to the patient and even injury to the persons who are tilting the wheelchair.
It may be seen from the above discussion that neither of the mentioned ways of administering a shampoo to a wheelchair patient is very satisfactory. Lifting the patient out of the wheelchair and into a shampoo chair is not a satisfactory approach. Neither is tilting the wheelchair backwards because of the requirement for at least two persons to perform this task and the fact that the wheelchair patient may be allowed to fall and possibly sustain injury.
Several prior art patents are considered interesting because they in one way or another relate to the above mentioned problems. U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,740 to EAST shows a simple attachment for a wheelchair which allows a wheelchair to be tilted backward so that the patient can rest or sleep. However, this structure is somewhat light and flimsy and does not instill confidence in the wheelchair patient. Moreover, this device does not have sufficient versatility to accomplish the objects of this invention since it may be tilted backward to only one angle, which is about 55 degrees from the vertical. This is not really sufficient for the purpose of giving a shampoo to a patient. For maximum convenience in giving a shampoo, the patient must really be tilted backward about 80 degrees or more.
A second prior art patent of interest is U.S. Pat. No. 4,158,524 to SERAFIN. This patent shows a platform for raising a wheelchair from ground level to a higher level, such as a porch. This patent does not contemplate and does not show any structure for securely holding the wheelchair on the platform and tilting the platform through an angle of 45 degrees to 90 degrees in order to shampoo the handicapped or injured person's hair.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,024,960 to FORSTER shows a large tilting platform for raising one end of a truck or car. However, this platform is considerably larger than would be necessary to hold a wheelchair. Moreover, this patented invention does not contemplate securing anything to the platform while it is being raised and of course does not provide any structure for securing a wheelchair to this platform.
None of the known prior art patents mentioned above contemplate raising and tilting a wheelchair on a platform and securing the wheelchair securely to the platform in order to tilt it through an angle of 45 degrees to 90 degrees for purposes of shampooing the hair of a wheelchair patient.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a tilting platform with a framework attached to the platform for securely holding a wheelchair on the platform, for shampooing the hair of a wheelchair patient without the patient having to leave his wheelchair.
It is another object of this invention to provide a wheelchair lift which can tilt a wheelchair backwards through an angle of 45 degrees to 90 degrees, for shampooing the hair of a person in the wheelchair.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a tilting platform for a wheelchair, the platform having a motor-driven hydraulic mechanism to operate the device.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a tilting platform for a wheelchair, the platform being arranged to be simply and quickly operated by the use of a hand lever.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a safe and efficient device, requiring only one operator, for securely holding a wheelchair and tilting the wheelchair backwards in order to shampoo the hair of a person in the wheelchair.